B&W Z2 AirPlay Dock reviewed by Sound and Vision magazine

“Bowers & Wilkins is one of the few truly high-end audio companies to have fully embraced the iDevice dock concept. Docks first showed up in its Zeppelin Series of all-one speaker systems. In 2012 B&W ditched the dock when introducing the A7 and A5 AirPlay speakers, but I’m happy to see it return in the new, lower-cost Z2. Apple’s switch from the long-standing 30-pin connector to the smaller Lightning connector with the iPhone 5 caught a lot of accessory makers napping, but B&W managed to stay ahead of the curve by introducing both the Z2 and an updated Lightning version of its Zeppelin Air just as many customers started to trade in their older iPhones for shiny new Lightning-equipped iPhone 5s.

The dock may seem a bit retro — and the included 3.5-mm analog input jack even more so — but the Z2 also lets you go wire-free via Apple’s excellent AirPlay technology. Unlike Bluetooth, AirPlay uses lossless compression to send wireless audio. B&W also points out that the $399 Z2 is likely to end up on a lot of bedside tables, so it makes sense to provide a convenient place to charge a phone overnight. As an iPhone owner, I can see B&W’s point.”